Bellator 55: What to Watch For

Christian M’Pumbu will fight for the first time since capturing
Bellator’s 205-pound crown. | Photo: Keith Mills

Christian
M'Pumbu was just another face in an eight-man crowd when he
entered the
Bellator Fighting Championships Season 4 light heavyweight
tournament. Three technical knockout wins later, the 34-year-old
Congolese fighter has promotional gold strapped around his waist,
and his world looks quite a bit different.

M’Pumbu will take the first step towards consolidating his
tournament run when he locks horns with journeyman Travis Wiuff
in a non-title tilt at
Bellator 55 on Saturday at the Cocopah Casino in Yuma, Ariz.
The newly minted champion has posted seven wins in eight outings,
last appearing in May, when he stopped Richard
Hale on third-round punches to capture the light heavyweight
crown at Bellator 45.

M’Pumbu’s championship may not be on the line, but the validation
he received in winning it will be when he walks into the cage. Deep
in talent and seasoned with compelling storylines and tournament
drama, here is what to watch for at Bellator 55:

A Star is Born -- At 40

Alexis
Vila became an instant sensation in the opening round of the
Season 5 bantamweight tournament, as he wiped out mouthy reigning
Bellator featherweight champion Joe Warren in
destructive fashion. After his ill-fated encounter with the Cuban’s
fists, Warren crumpled, went stiff and lay motionless for several
unsettling moments. Few could have envisioned such a grand Bellator
entrance for Vila, an undefeated by relatively unknown 40-year-old
who won Olympic bronze in freestyle wrestling in 1996. His lethal
blend of world-class wrestling and wicked punching power have made
him the favorite in the tournament, even as an undersized
135-pounder. Vila faces an interesting test in the semifinals, as
he draws Marcos
Galvao, a
WEC veteran and two-time Brazilian jiu-jitsu world
champion.

Eduardo
"Dudu" Dantas File Photo

Dantas hails from Nova Uniao.

Dream Final or ‘Wild’ West
Return

Some within the Bellator ranks have to be pining for a
Vila-Eduardo
Dantas matchup in the bantamweight tournament final. The
22-year-old Dantas dazzled in his first outing with the company, as
he leveled the durable and well-respected Wilson Reis
with a second-round knee strike and follow-up punches in the
opening round of the 135-pound draw. Dantas hones his craft
alongside UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo at
the revered
Nova Uniao camp in Brazil and has pieced together a streak of
four straight wins, all of them finishes. The gifted Shooto South
America champion has suffered only one legitimate defeat -- a close
unanimous decision to Japanese ace Masakatsu Ueda two years ago --
and many view him as the sport’s top prospect at 135 pounds. Dantas
has no easy task in front of him, however, as he tackles Ed West, a
finalist in the Bellator Season 3 bantamweight tournament who has
not been finished in almost eight years.

Overdue Debut

In August, blue-chip Brazilian lightweight prospect Ricardo
Tirloni signed on Bellator’s dotted line. Two months after the
promotion acquired his services, the 28-year-old will debut. An
aggressive Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, Tirloni has rattled off
10 consecutive victories, including his 2009 rear-naked choke
submission on UFC veteran Brian Cobb.
Having spent considerable time at
American Top Team, he now trains out of the same
Ataque Duplo camp that Thiago
Tavares calls home. Dangerous off his back and on his feet,
Tirloni has secured 11 of his 13 professional victories by
knockout, technical knockout or submission and more than half of
them inside one round. He suffered his only career defeat to former
WEC lightweight champion Ben
Henderson, a man against whom he more than held his own until
he wound up locked inside the arms of the man with perhaps the
game’s most devastating guillotine choke. In his first appearance
under the Bellator banner, Tirloni will lock horns with the
once-beaten Steve Gable,
an EliteXC
veteran on a two-fight winning streak.

Opportunity Knocks

Bellator has mostly steered clear of signing higher-profile UFC
washouts, but its latest undercard will provide valuable
opportunities for Edgar
Garcia and Steve
Steinbeiss -- two men who went a combined 0-4 in their
respective stints inside the Octagon -- to re-establish themselves.
Garcia, 27, was purged from the UFC roster following his submission
defeat to “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 9 finalist DaMarques
Johnson at UFC 107. He will carry a three-fight winning streak
into his matchup with Jacob Ortiz.
The 30-year-old Steinbeiss was released after his unanimous
decision loss to Rob Kimmons
at UFC Live 2. He will enter his promotional debut against Dano Moore on
a career-best four-fight winning streak.